Trauma Podcast Episodes

Trauma is something that gets played out in the present. It’s a historical event whose impacts get played out here. People’s responses to trauma, they’re having normal reactions to an abnormal event. Ted Witzig Jr. is with me in the studio today. Welcome everyone to Breaking Bread the podcast brought to you by Apostolic Christian Counseling and Family Services. 

Ted, the topic today is trauma. Yes. How important is this topic? How relevant? Yeah. Thanks, Matt. It’s an important topic because it either affects us personally or someone we know and love. There are various types of trauma and various degrees of trauma. But whether somebody you know, and love has experienced trauma, is not a question. 

The impact of trauma can show up in people’s relationships and ability to trust. For example, that part of the trauma that’s below the surface or in the person’s past is affecting them but you may not even realize that they’ve had a trauma. Okay, so let’s go into that trauma. Let’s work out a definition for it. Try to help us understand it.  

Yep. By its nature, by definition, a trauma is something that when it occurs, feels overwhelming, threatening, or shocking to the person. It’s something that usually you would say takes somebody off guard or it overwhelms their nervous system. So, it’s not a natural occurrence. 

So, this isn’t something that we experience every day. Correct. Not unless you live in a war zone, right? So, some of the people you hear about in the news like refugees in Syria or something like that are experiencing these kinds of things on a repeated basis. 

But for most of us, these are things that happen more infrequently. Oftentimes we use the word incorrectly. Somebody says, oh that was traumatic. So, let me ask you this true/false question. Sure. Everybody has experienced trauma true or false. The counselor’s caveat here if you think of traumas as ranging from big T traumas like somebody in a war zone watching a buddy get blown up in front of them or a rape as a big T trauma all the way down to small T traumas in which things occur which are unexpected and painful, emotional events. 

You could say in that sense, everybody’s experienced some degree of trauma, but not everybody goes on to have lasting effects from trauma. And I think that’s probably the thing that would differentiate. Well, because you mentioned that definition overwhelmed, I think examples are helpful. I’d like you to perhaps give us a few more examples of traumatic experiences and place them in buckets. 

And let me say it this way. If every disappointing moment was trauma, then what is trauma? Does that make sense? That’s right. So, we’ve reserved trauma for specific things. Yes. Because as human beings, we go through a lot of things that are emotionally painful that make us sad going through emotionally difficult times. 

Those are all valid. I’m certainly not diminishing those. They don’t generally have the level of intensity or shock that goes along with trauma. So, some of the common buckets that we think about. One is natural disasters. It’s not a personal trauma. It’s not interpersonal. But one of the things that it does is it causes people to question their safety. Okay, we find a lot of safety being in our house, but when I have to flee my house when it’s not the safe place, then where is it safe and so natural disasters tend to disorient people about where is my sense of safety and getting grounded. 

So, will trauma always circle around those very core human needs? Does that make sense? It’s a great question. And I will say that safety is a very important aspect around trauma. Not all traumas, but most of them, are related to physical safety or emotional safety. 

Right. Okay. The next one is accidents. They occur like house fires, car accidents, farming accidents. Around things that are part of our normal life. A lot of times it happens on the job site. It happened while I was heading to Walmart. It happened while we were on vacation, you know? And so, the thing about that is it adds a sense of, oh, no, this could happen at any time. So, I can see how trauma then places its mark on the normalcy of life, which makes life very difficult because what are you going to do? Avoid going to the store for food or avoid getting in the car again?  

The next bucket is crime and interpersonal violence. Sometimes people are victims of a crime, but they don’t know the assailant. Things like a robbery, people that were at a bomb site, like at 911, they’re in situations where the victim and the assailant know each other. And so, the closer the victim and the assailant are, the more basic trust is woven in there. Going back to what we previously said about, safety being core to our needs, the closer that person is the more they should have played in my safety. 

That teases up trauma to another level. That is absolutely right. That is why when there’s abuse of power like when a teacher harms a student, or a parent abuses a child. When there’s abuse of power, it’s abusing trust on many levels but one of the reasons is that person was supposed to watch out for the person’s safety. 

And so that’s why things like sexual abuse, physical abuse, or even neglect as somebody goes through their developmental phases is oftentimes such a long-lasting thing because what was getting laid down was supposed to be trust in this authority figure and they have the best interest in my mind versus I was an object for their wrath or their pleasure. 

Sure. Sadly, that makes a lot of sense. Yes. There are other painful life experiences, and I want to mention some of these just because they happen. I wouldn’t necessarily say that they’re always traumatic to somebody. They’re always big, but they can be traumatic to people. So, like the unexpected death of a loved one, for example, if somebody dies of a massive heart attack right there and you see the ambulance come and stuff like that, that can play in. 

So, another one is illness such as cancer. When an illness you are fighting has the potential to take your life and you can’t directly fight it, and it’s helpless. It’s a helpless element. Yeah. It could be helplessness, painful medical procedures, things of that nature. The suicide of a friend or family member definitely had an impact in my life. 

Have you found that some people have been unaware of the trauma in their life that’s affecting them? Yeah. I think one of the things that happens is sometimes people have lived with a certain reality and that’s just the way life was. And because of that, they’ve never put their finger on it. And sometimes, people will also minimize what they’ve been through just because they feel so much shame. And every time they think about it or talk about it, they just feel incredible shame. 

And so, they’re like, I just don’t want to open that box. I mean, there’s part of me that says, oh, I would love to be able to put these things in a lock box and never open them. The problem is the emotional energy that it takes to keep suppressing the painful emotional realities that are not healed take a toll on us. In general, what I would say is if they’ve put it in a box so to speak and that means they’ve worked through it enough so that it’s kind of gone into a part of their long-term memory and it doesn’t impact their life or day to day functioning, great.  

As a psychologist, I don’t have a need to dig around in people’s past so one of the things you need to think about is that this is all in the eyes of the beholder. Also, because two people can be at the scene of the same burglary or robbery or assault and one can have long lasting effects from that experience and one may temporarily be dealing with the shock of that event but when it’s over it dissipates. 

So, let me provide some delineation there. Sure. It’s one thing to have a traumatic experience. Yes. It’s another thing for that traumatic experience to continue to exist in a sense of effect. That’s exactly right. For most people, getting back to normal life, those kinds of things, are going to gradually return to them. 

The people that it affected most drastically or that were most affected or impacted or whatever, we need to watch them closer because in some of those their responses are going to continue to be impacted by that over time. Okay. So now I want to check my understanding here. It sounds to me like God has designed our bodies to react to traumatic events. We could probably measure it from heart rate to various things going on in our brains, as well as on spiritual levels. And then do we go back to that state of rest? That’s right. Yes or no, we should over time. And that’s really what we’re talking about is when that doesn’t return properly, God built our bodies. 

So, if you could think of three zones of tension or levels of preparedness or anxiety, the green zone is the calm zone where we function the best. And then the yellow zone would be kind of tense, but we can still function. The red zone is more of an alarm state. And our bodies are designed to go into that alarm state to respond to things. 

So, for example, if I see somebody who looks like they’re going to fall down the steps, I’m going to go into action and very rapidly get into a red state. I’m going to try to help that person not fall. Okay. Not even thinking about it, you just do it. 

But then with that, our bodies are designed to go back down to green. The problem that occurs with trauma is that the body goes from that green zone or whatever the natural state is up to red, and it pegs the meter at the top. And then instead of the body and mind coming back down to green, the body starts to treat the rest state as a place where I’m alert for this to happen again. 

And so, it might come down, but it comes down more to a yellow, you might say, and the body and the mind stay on guard. Like, I don’t want to be surprised again. I don’t want to be caught off guard again. Are the effects of this only relational? So, what I mean by that is I can see from the examples that you previously mentioned about trust and that type of thing, that there would be a relational residue, for example, carried over by trauma, but is there a physical one? 

So, if you think about it, there is no question physiologically in the brain and body, there’s residue emotionally, relationally, and spiritually. All of those in the physiological domain, the brain stays in alert mode. Just like our fire alarms are set to go off too early, as opposed to going off too late, the amygdala in the brain is like your fire alarm. 

And so, for example, if somebody grew up and experienced physical abuse from a father, let’s say, but then later on in their life, they are in a work relationship with an authority figure, a male authority figure that had some of those characteristics. That relationship, even though that man may not be abusive, the fact he’s an authority figure, in a certain kind of setting, it may trigger off that sense of being under threat or potentially in danger. 

So physiologically, your body in that alert state is shooting adrenaline and cortisol into your bloodstream to keep you on alert in the short term. That’s by God’s design. It’s there to help us in those moments when we need it. Over the long term, that leads to depletion in our bodies. And studies show over the long term, chronic trauma leads to lowered immune responses and burned-out hormonal functioning in people. For some individuals, trauma is woven into the fabric of their relationships and their self-worth and how they see the world. Even how they see that God sees them, things of that nature. 

So, it’s a real hook. Oh, yes. In the sense of having a barb or something that can really yank you around and maybe for a time you forget the hook is there, but then something happens, and you know very well that you’re still on the line, so to speak. It sure can. And in fact, one of the things that’s quite frustrating for people is when they’re not in a situation where their trauma has been triggered, and they’re living life, then all of a sudden, something happens and, bang, their nervous system is on high alert and they’re back to square one, which has to be discouraging. Yes. I would say that’s exactly right. 

It absolutely feels like square one because our body’s alarm system responds in the present. So, when your body goes into its fight and flight response, it’s doing that right now. It doesn’t matter to your body. It’s not trying to say, oh, and by the way, I’m giving you a trigger for something that happened 20 years ago or six months ago. It’s going right now. You are in fight and flight.  

So, Ted, what you are saying then is that trauma is made very present. So, I think that’s an important concept that though trauma might have happened decades ago, it’s very much alive. So, if you think about it this way, Matt, in terms of how your brain processes trauma, the right hemisphere of your brain sees things in terms of pictures and experiences. It would replay the whole experience of something as it’s more creative in that sense while the left hemisphere is more about language and logic and math and those kinds of things. 

So, if I said to you, remember the experience of one of your favorite birthday parties. You’re going to remember it was at this place and we had this cake and then we did this, I remember. And so, you’re going to be thinking about this experience, and it’ll bring a smile to your face. 

And you remember that your left hemisphere is saying that was at the roller rink, it was about 19__, fill in the blank, and so and so was there. And so, the left hemisphere just remembers the facts of it, while the right hemisphere is remembering the experience of it and the feelings. 

And the brain research on this is really fascinating, because what it has shown is when people are re-experiencing a trauma, their right hemisphere is lighting up. It is not only lighting up, but also flashbulbs going at the same time the left hemisphere of their brain is suppressed. The part that says now I’m safe. 

Now that’s no longer happening. And so, what ends up happening is the double whammy of an accelerated re-experiencing with a suppressed ability to be able to put the words to it and be able to say that was then and this is now. Interesting. You’re almost rewiring reflex, which is our protection mechanism. 

Yes. And to unwire that reflex would take some doing, I would guess. That’s correct. A lot of people have lived with their traumas long enough, and they’ve tried to get rid of them, and they try to avoid the triggers and those kinds of things. And when they can’t, they just assume that this is the way life has to be and I don’t promise any of my clients here at ACCFS a situation where we’ll just take care of that and it’ll never bother you again. 

But what we can do is we can get it to a place where it’s in its right history in your life. It’s part of life, but it doesn’t have to run your life. It doesn’t have to define your life. Yeah. Kind of a metaphor that I’ve really liked is this concept of orbits. The planets orbit the sun, and the sun keeps them all in orbit and some orbit closely and some orbit at a great distance. 

And everything in our life falls into orbit, in a sense. And really placing that in its proper orbit allows us to relate to it appropriately. That’s correct. You know, oftentimes because there’s been some kind of damage that is long term, like if somebody was at the scene of an accident or someone was killed, life is different after that. 

And oftentimes people will segment their lives pre and post their trauma. The thing about it is, right after a trauma, the orbit of that trauma is central to dealing with the aftermath. In fact, we might be orbiting it. Yes, correct. And so, I like to think about it in some phases, I didn’t come up with them, but we use them a lot with people. 

And we say that the first phase, after somebody’s experienced a trauma, is the victim phase. And the victim phase is when they’ve experienced trauma. And they’re just trying to deal with the aftermath of it. And in essence, they’re wishing they weren’t in the orbit of that thing. They wish that it wouldn’t be defining them or wouldn’t be coming into their thoughts or coming into their dreams or interfering. But it is. So that’s the victim phase.  

The next phase is called the survivor phase, and that’s where somebody is finding out how to live and to move forward, where the trauma isn’t defining them as much, and they’re moving forward, they’re getting on with their life, they’re trying to be able to see that as something that happened, it was impactful, but also that it’s not in the forefront of their mind. They are starting to be able to see it in the rear-view mirror and coming to terms with it. Some things will have to be grieved. Some things will have to be overcome. But it still is very much part of the fabric. It is. I mean, there’s no escaping that event. I am a survivor of X, Y, or Z. I went through it; this is part of my experience. Exactly. And that becomes very much a part of our story. Exactly. 

And there is a phase beyond that, and we call it the thriver or the overcomer. So, they are victim, survivor, thriver. And that’s where the person gets to a place where the traumas have been integrated enough and become part of the overall narrative of their life, not that the thing was good in and of itself, because I’m not going to tell you that those experiences in and of themselves were good, but they can also get to a place where they can actually see those as good. 

They are not defined by that. They’re defined by their relationship with Christ, their ability to go forward and even be able to see the pain they’ve been through as a platform to be able to minister to other people. That’s not an easy place to get to. And I certainly don’t put it on my clients as like, okay, to get through this, you have to go out and be very public about your experience. Some people are going to be very private about those things. 

Well, it very much speaks to the beauty from ashes concept that Isaiah speaks of, which is very central to the gospel and to what Christ continually and routinely did in lives. He would take trauma and brokenness and redeem it for some good. Yes, and I believe really strongly on that end that God’s grace in this is to bring people to those places where they know that they are loved, that they can walk through this in a place of healing. 

So, Ted, have you seen that? Have you seen a person go from victim to thriver? Yes, I have. It is hard work, and I don’t want to minimize the hard work. I also believe that it is possible. I believe that it is most possible when it’s done in the context of people being able to have layers of support around them, so they’re getting good trauma treatment. 

But also, that they have people in their lives who are there to support them in that to have someone who says, I believe you, I want to see you healed. I want to walk with you through this. I’m not going to reject you and I’m not going to pretend that it’s not hard or even that I’ve been through something similar, but just to know that they’re loved and accepted for where they’re at. It’s a very powerful thing.  

So, then what you’ve just communicated is the power and importance of community in this healing process as you’ve described it, and I would have to think then that the Church finds a very unique and important place in caring for individuals like this. Absolutely. 

And again, certain traumas are more easily public than others. but even when people have gone through a lot of private things or things in their history that they choose not to share with many, to have that small core group of a mentor, maybe a minister, and it’s going to vary by the person or the situation, but to have that community of people walking with somebody is really a beautiful sight. None of us as counselors believe that we are the beginning and the ending of God’s design for care or treatment of the person. 

We’re one part of the body working together. I work with people for an hour a week or maybe two sometimes when things are really intense. That means there’s a lot of time that I need people outside of the counseling office being the hands and feet of Jesus to other people. And that is exactly why we like to air this type of content, to bring awareness, to bring you to the reality that many experience. 

Thanks. We’re going to cut in on the conversation and we’re going to stop today’s episode. We look forward to picking up next time with more on trauma. Thanks everyone for being with us. 

God’s intent, what he would like to see, is as the healing process continues, he wants to redeem that hurt. I mean, take that thing that isn’t a good thing and somehow, through his grace, through the body of Christ, through the healing process, take something that was not good and be able to bring life and healing out of it. 

Hello, everyone. Welcome to Breaking Bread, the podcast brought to you by Apostolic Christian Counseling and Family Services. Today, we’re airing the second part of a conversation that I had with Ted Witzig Jr. on the topic of trauma. Specifically, today we’ll listen to Ted explain PTSD as well as what Jesus thinks of trauma. 

Ted, I’ve had a growing awareness, not just from this place, but from the media. I feel like it’s more a part of our vocabulary in the last decade. It is. And maybe there’s a good reason for that. At any rate, maybe unpack that term a bit. Yes. So, PTSD stands for post-traumatic stress disorder. And it is a cluster of symptoms that when it occurs for a period of time, we would say somebody has a PTSD. 

So, think about it this way, that in order to have PTSD, one has to have experienced some kind of trauma. Okay. Not everybody who experiences trauma develops PTSD, right? But everyone who has PTSD has experienced trauma. Okay. The reason it is in the news more is because of the degree of understanding that people have had, particularly related to people coming home from the Gulf War and the war in Afghanistan. 

Military awareness of PTSD has become civilian awareness. When you make that delineation in awareness, you are not saying that we’re more susceptible to PTSD these days. That’s correct. That has always been present but the awareness and labeling of it and dealing with it as a post-traumatic situation. 

That’s correct. There’s been trauma for as long as there’s been human beings, but the difference is in World War II. for example, the definition for PTSD did not exist. In fact, the definition for PTSD did not exist until 1980. Believe it or not, it was 1980 that PTSD was first put in the diagnosis manual. 

So, believe it or not, it was post-Vietnam War. It’s important because people who experienced trauma, much trauma happens in war zones. They were called shell shocked. Sometimes they were referred to by very pejorative names. They were described as people without courage and those kinds of things couldn’t be further from the truth for what occurred over time. And the thing is you have these servicemen and women coming home very changed by the experience of war. 

And then coming home and their rates of substance abuse or rates of divorce, the rates of suicide were quite high. I think the good news out of that story is that because people are more aware of it, they’re more aware that there are treatments. The downside of it is people can generally understand why a soldier in Afghanistan would get PTSD because he saw X, Y, and Z. Why would I get it out of this car wreck that just happened on my way to Walmart? They’ll compare traumas, if you will. And ultimately, that’s generally not a helpful thing, but let me go through some of the key features of PTSD. 

There are five if you think of it that way. The first one is you have to have exposure to a traumatic event or events. Then they have some kind of re-experiencing of the event. That means thoughts of the event pop into their heads, or they might have nightmares. They might have full blown fear. Flashback by definition means they’re reliving the experience. They’re thinking about being in it again. The next thing is that the person is trying really hard not to remember it. They’re trying everything they can do to stay away from things that would remind them of the event. The fourth thing that happens is that the person with PTSD has some changes in their mood and the way they think about themselves. 

And so, for example, they might have shame, they might have guilt. Sometimes it’s survivor’s guilt. Why did I live, and that person died? Sometimes they might just have lowered self-worth. They might feel like now that this has happened, I’m used goods. I never amount to anything. And then the last one is that their body is stuck in that alert mode that we talked about earlier. And so, they have some kind of hyper arousal, meaning that they might have difficulty sleeping. They might be more irritable. Which Ted, I would think then maybe heightens their chance of acting out in ways that they don’t want to act out. Yeah. What you have with this cluster of symptoms is, on one hand, they’re trying to suppress things. On the other hand, their body’s working against them, accelerating things. And so, irritability and interpersonal arguments or trust issues, reactivity in relationships can then cause problems in the relationships or difficulty with trust control. And as the saying goes, hurt people can hurt people. 

Absolutely. And you can see how that happens. Yeah, they accidentally create reality. So, if somebody, for example, was hurt in a relationship, they have trust issues. And what they want is to feel safe. But then whenever they get close to somebody, they start pushing people away. And then people get tired of that and back up. 

And so, then they lose relationships. They start saying, oh, wait a minute, you know, it just creates this huge catch 22. And oftentimes, Matt, I will tell you that people come to counseling because of the marital issue or because of the depression or because of the addiction. And that’s actually not the thing that happened three decades ago. 

Yeah. It ends up being the outgrowth or some of the consequences that brings them to counseling. And then as we’re working at this, all of a sudden, we find out, oh, this happened, and this happened, and this happened. And people oftentimes have just assumed that they have to live with those things. 

But what you’re saying is that things are more complex than what they appear. Yeah, they sure can be. So, you’re saying what would have seemed to be on the surface to be a marital issue, while that is really the effect of some reverberation of some trauma that’s gone on, and then you’re saying there is value in going back to that trauma, working that through, going through the stages that you’ve previously mentioned, and that has a lot of hope in bringing out these effects that are currently happening. 

Yes. And let’s say it is somebody that’s married, being able for those spouses to work together and understand what’s happening can really add a lot of hope to the relationship and understanding. The hope is that by putting together a good plan for the individual healing and the relationship healing, that’s a really neat thing that we get to see as we watch as God does the healing through this process. We get to watch people be able to see healing in many layers of their lives. 

I would have to think because it touches so many areas of our life, physically, psychologically, which are complicated, and certainly spiritually. I’d like to talk a little bit about the spiritual aspect. Sure. What does Jesus think of trauma? 

Yeah, I think that trauma, in whatever form, is a result of the brokenness of this world. It is either the result of the general effects of sin on the world or specific impact of sin in the world. And so, from that perspective, I think Jesus cares so deeply about the impact of those things that he came to this earth to be the sacrifice, to make a plan of salvation to die for our sin, our suffering, and our shame, and to work towards setting all things right.  

So, you’ve really imprinted Jesus and the gospel very near to our trauma. Yeah. In a sense, our trauma really should be pointing us to Christ. Yeah, I think it’s important to think of it in this way. I would never look at somebody and say that the trauma itself is a good thing. Okay. I think God and his majesty, and his grace can bring good out of evil. He can bring good even through suffering, but I don’t ever try to convince somebody that thing of itself is a good thing. Yeah. And I would say that’s one of the things people question is why has God done this to me? 

And when somebody is the victim of an assault or abuse, people have that question. Where was God? And those kinds of things. And I can say this without reservation. And that is that God is grieved by any sin. Okay. And it’s not God’s will for somebody to sin. And Jesus says if you offend one of these least, better for you that a millstone was hung around your neck and you were cast into the sea. 

You get a sense of Jesus that he says, don’t you dare traumatize. Yeah, absolutely. I think one of the things that happens, whether you’re looking at it in Scripture or you look at it in our lives today, it creates such hurt on so many different levels. You can see why our adversary, Satan, would love trauma. 

Okay, for him trauma is just a magnificent tool. Not only does it represent brokenness in this world or in relationships, but the enduring impact also where it creates problems with trust and damage to somebody’s self-image. And also, it creates oftentimes for some people a sense of guilt. 

Can I trust God? And, or even kind of twist people’s God image there, how they relate to God. As you say that Ted, you’ve really expanded my view of the landscape here. The adversary Satan is using this as an affront to Jesus. Oh, yeah. And Jesus coming to repair the collateral damage of the fall. 

You really see that you and I are caught in the middle of this tussle. And there’s a great battle going on. Oh, yeah. I would say it this way. Oftentimes, the trauma survivors I work with and that we work with here, experience a lot of the emotion of shame. Okay. They feel very shameful. And sometimes that shame is so powerful that they don’t even feel worthy to be able to experience God’s love and that God could love me, you know, and I’m not talking about in an awe of humility about his greatness, I’m talking about, I am flawed at the core, and no one could love me. And because of that, I am unwanted.  

Listen to that anti gospel that you just said. Okay. Yeah. I am unwanted. God does not want me. The story of the Bible says God wants you. Absolutely. And you know what? It sometimes takes a lot of time to help people to be able to shift that image, to look at it that God is for you, not against you. 

And he wants you to walk through the healing process and to give you grace in it. Again, I would look at it and say, I don’t understand why some things happen. I mean, I get the why question a lot, and I have often said to many people, I don’t know. Meeting people in their angst, to be with them, entering into their suffering, being present with them, acknowledging it, is the kindest thing we can do, and it also keeps connection in the middle of that confusion. Yeah. I so appreciated Jesus there with Mary and Martha when their brother died. Oh, yeah. Great example. And Jesus in this moment weeps. Yes, here he understood why but he didn’t see it necessary to wax eloquent about the why, he just connected in that moment. Yeah, it is fascinating because not only did he know that he would be raising Lazarus and all those things, but he still took that moment to weep with them. 

When people are suffering and asking big questions about God, why this, or why not this, helpers need to be very careful about what they’re doing at that moment because it becomes very easy to give very trite answers to giant questions. And when people are in a place of pain, our goal should be a pastoral goal. It’s to be with them. It’s to help them with whatever phase of life they’re in right there. 

Trying to answer the big questions of why suffering in a philosophical sense to a person in pain is ludicrous. We do it a lot, but it’s not the right thing to do. There’s a time when somebody wants to think about the big things about suffering and why and that’s fine, but not in the middle of pain. Sometimes later on there’s a time to ask why. And so, I think even to validate, it’s a reasonable question to ask why? Oh, absolutely. And it’s an important question. And we are going to ask that question, but not right now is really what you’re saying. That’s right. It’s the way I understand it at least.  

Let’s say there’s been a tragic death, and it feels like a rip-off. And I think part of the reason it feels like a rip-off is that our souls were not made to die. And so, death and brokenness and the impact of these things just feels wrong. It feels like it shouldn’t have happened. And in Eden, you’re right, it shouldn’t have happened. And in this time and place, these kinds of things do happen, but because of Jesus, and as the kingdom of God is fulfilled, someday all these things are in the process of being set right. 

You know, your example made me think of this example. We’re seeing a great deal of the military with PTSD. Am I right with that? Suicide rates are up, which is tragic for our service men and women who have given so much for us that they would struggle in this way. But I’ve had this thought that we’re asking them to engage in something that they’ve not been created for. Is that a fair statement in the sense of warfare in the sense of contending? If I understand the Garden of Eden and God’s creation, he didn’t intend for us to process the difficult things that they have to process for all of us. If you think about what we were created for, we’re created for relationship, connection, to be able to do some work there in the garden and to be able to enjoy the oneness with God and those kinds of things. 

And so, when you look at the hard things people face, whether it’s in war, whether it’s in divorce, whether it’s in child abuse, whether it’s in refugees. Matthew 21 trauma takes all of that and turns it on its head. Yeah, for sure. Matthew 21 So I know the answer to this question but go ahead and elaborate a bit. 

You see Jesus as being very near to the care that a person needs who’s gone through trauma. And how should it be administered? Yep. Great question. First of all, I think he is very near. Just like Jesus came in the incarnation, he put on flesh and entered our suffering, we sometimes have to model that because sometimes they’re not able to feel him. Sometimes they may even feel betrayed by him in those moments. And so, as friends and family members and as helpers sometimes we have to be the Jesus with human skin on here today and just stay steady with them through that time. 

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense I do believe this. God’s intent, what he would like to see is, as the healing process continues, he wants to redeem that hurt. I mean, take that thing that isn’t a good thing and somehow, through his grace, through the body of Christ, through the healing process, take something that was not good and be able to bring life and healing out of it. 

There’s a little quip that you can say, it’s just like, Satan’s millstone around your neck, God wants to turn it into a steppingstone where he is glorified, where others are blessed. and that person experiences full joy in their life. When you say it like that, that’s what God wants and by his power, he can accomplish that in a person’s life. 

Yes. What we now have done is show him superior over the curse in a really powerful way. I mean, we can talk about Calvary and death and resurrection and how the curse was broken in that moment, but this is very real in our life where we see millstones turning into steppingstones and we say, wow, God is a victor in this. 

Yes. Thanks, Ted. And thanks everyone for being along for this series on trauma. We pray that this series has been informative, that it’s been equipping, but most importantly, that it’s been God glorifying and hope giving. Thank you all for being here. Goodbye. 

Again, before we get to today’s content, I’d like to bring to your awareness the Proclaim and Serve Missions Conference that Harvest Call is organizing and hosting this July 19th and 20th. The event will be held at our Roanoke Apostolic Christian Church, and you can go to the website at harvestcall.org to sign up. The event will begin on Friday evening and then continue all day Saturday.  

And now to today’s episode, it’s a great opportunity for us as parents to know our children. And to know what their good days look like, but that we also know what their rough days look like. And that we know them that well, that when some of these trauma triggers or red flags start popping up then that’s a good time to just do a check in and open up the door with our kids. 

Welcome back everyone to Breaking Bread, the podcast brought to you by Apostolic Christian Counseling and Family Services. In the studio today, I’ve got Brian Sutter and Craig Stickling. Great to have you guys here. Great to be here, Matt. Thank you, Matt. A lot of times when you guys team up, our conversation regards children and regards parenting and that type of aspect. 

And today is no different, but we’re going to talk about a very delicate topic and a lot of our topics are delicate, but I don’t know, at the moment, this seems most delicate of all. And that’s trauma as it intersects with children. Trauma can look a lot of different ways. It can come from a lot of different sources and therefore can make it a little bit difficult to say this was a trauma or, as a parent or as a caretaker that you could miss it easy enough because it can look a lot of different ways and come from a lot of different places. 

Yeah. And just even to recap, Ted unpacked trauma. So, we’re not going to replough all of that ground. But what I learned from that conversation is trauma stems from an event that really happened. And that event still is carried along in life. And so even though it was in the past, it’s very much present. 

It’s very impactful in the psyche of an individual, as an adult with lots of experiences and years, I can process an event that’s happened and be able to see the bigger picture. Whereas a little three-year-old or five-year-old or seven-year-old brain, they haven’t had those experiences of how to process something. 

Yeah. Well, I’m going to give you an example. I do remember being in first grade, maybe, and became aware of a classmate whose parents divorced. And that really put me in a bit of a tailspin. I was afraid. All of a sudden, my world got opened up to a possibility I’d never even fathomed before. And I kind of languished a bit in this fear until finally my mom perceived it and we were to have a conversation about it, and she was able to settle my heart on that issue. 

Now, I’m not sure that was necessarily trauma, but to your point Craig that we miss it as adults. Sure. Yeah. And in that sometimes as a child, you don’t even have the wherewithal to bring that to mom or dad. You’re just trying to sort through it in your own mind and you don’t realize boy, mom or dad or others may have some wisdom to pour into this. 

And from that perspective, I think there’s even a difference between trauma like you experiencing a traumatic event and then the diagnosis of PTSD where sometimes parents being able to just provide good sound teaching in the midst of a trauma can be very helpful then to prevent moving on into what we would call PTSD and can be quite helpful with just some pretty basic information. 

Yeah. So, PTSD is basically that existence of the trauma continually being alive throughout time. That’s right. And you’re saying that a parent can often, if they’re aware of that in the young person’s life, really stop that. And say, oh, that’s an event and that’s all that it is. Particularly if it’s a smaller thing. Certainly, there’s going to be big T kinds of traumas that are just overwhelming the system. And it’s going to be more than just some information in that. But a lot of things, you can just be talking through and helping them sort through it so their little minds don’t put a meaning on it that isn’t accurate.  

That trauma is almost like a little videotape that gets played every single day over and over and over. And even though we are moving on as adults, that little child’s brain is still stuck. And that gets played over and over and over and there will be little triggers that will flash that memory back or remind them or reignite that over and over and over. 

So, they’re never getting comfortable or feeling a sense of safety and trust again to be able to talk through or process that. So, you said safety. That was one of the big ahas that I had with Ted when I talked to him about trauma is I came to this understanding that trauma very much orbits closely to safety. 

When safety is breached, then you’re teed up for a traumatic event. Right. And so now we look at children who are the most vulnerable among us. Right. So, if you think about them, if they’ve got a safety barometer, it would be much more cued than mine would be. Right. You can see how the perception of either themselves or their perception of others or the perception of the world around them can turn into everything’s dangerous. When it comes to others or the world or me, I’m bad. And safety can help speak into that. Bad things can happen. Other people do bad things, but there are safe places. There are safe people. 

Yeah. And that’s particularly hard to sort through when people who were supposed to be safe have maybe been the perpetrator. And then a lot of times you’ll see the child taking it on as this must have been my fault. And again, that just breaks down that whole sense of safety. Okay, we’re going to go there. 

You just mentioned a big T trauma where the perpetrator is somebody close to them. We’re going to come back to that, but you mentioned something about helping them process the insecurities of our world. Craig, I have been in conversations with you where you’ve helped me understand that this youngest generation has got a lot of fears particularly around safety these days. 

Share that with our listeners. Help us understand their world. Well, you think of our world just a few generations ago. Our world was limited to our house and what we could see out the window to our neighborhood. And our world was pretty contained in that. One of the marvels of technology is that kids get to see so much, so many places. And I remember when 911 occurred, I was working in a school at that time and I remember we had to do so much follow up because those kids, every time they saw that repeated in the news, their brain was thinking that was happening again. 

They were processing this as a repeated event. Interesting. They saw it as, oh, no, another building’s coming down. And so, their sense of safety and security is a different game for them. So that’s a classic example, Craig, that they’re taking in the same media and information that we are but unable to process exactly what the meaning of it is. Overexposure to all of the bad things in the world tees you up for already being prone to when something bad confirms, oh no, the word really isn’t safe. So, the point you are making really is this youngest generation, our children are growing up in an insecure world and not very safe world and they know it. 

Yeah. And that tees up some trauma. The perception is that wow, it is a bad place out there and people just want to kill you or hurt you. So, if we go into this larger T trauma area, certainly this impacts the psyche, the development in some level. And I would maybe venture a guess that there would be some outward signs that perhaps some trauma has occurred. 

Yeah, and I think that would be just one of the things for parents to be aware of that you’re not always going to be aware that a trauma has happened. You may not even be able to always even prevent, but you can be aware of their behavior. And if you’re noticing significant shifts, whether that’s outwardly like aggression or in their play, especially for young kids, if they’re having particularly aggressive play, or they seem to be acting out a scene over and over, regression in like potty training, for example, or other kinds of behaviors, you expect that to ebb and flow over time for kids. 

But if you see it and it feels more extreme or it’s persistent, that certainly would be a cue that there’s something going on and maybe I ought to talk to them and wonder if something’s bothering them. So, is that your lead in? Honey, is there something bothering you? Yeah, or I’ve noticed it seems like all of a sudden sleep is really difficult. 

You know, again, in that 5, 6, 7 age range, when their brains are developing, you’re going to expect them to start having nightmares, that that’s part of development. Right. So, you have to be careful of that. But yeah, to notice are you doing okay? Is something bothering you? Those sorts of things. 

And open up the door with our kids, and it doesn’t have to be the 20 questions, but it can be just a couple letting them know, hey, just wondering, notice some things, and open up the door for them, let them know that we are wanting to talk about where they’re at. It’s important probably not to jump to conclusions. 

Right. Let’s be a little bit more specific when it comes to treatment, right? When it comes to engaging a child with trauma, what does it look like to walk them out of it? Well, I think the first thing is what do I need to do to make sure that my child is safe today? That’s the first step. But then there’s follow-up, there are other additional things that can be done as well for the continued treatment and health of that person. 

What are the routines? Let’s get back. Let’s create some routines that are very structured and steadfast, trying to minimize, if possible, the stress at home, looking in our own mirror of our own lives. Am I stressed out all the time? Am I bringing that to the place? Speaking of making future plans, giving our kids something that we’re planning in the future for creating that hope. And with that piece of making plans as mom and dads, yeah, oh, we’re going to do this, but then we don’t. 

But for kids that are still in their trauma cycle, we need to make sure that we’re keeping our promises. If we tell them we’re going to do something, hey, next Saturday, we’re going to go to the zoo. Okay. We need to make sure that we follow through on that. That’s good. Yeah. Just to go along with some of that. 

I think one of the things to think about is for parents not to always push to talk more about whatever happened but also not to avoid. It seems like you can pretty easily fall into either of those extremes. And really, I think our goal would be to be a safe place that they can come to that every once in a while we are checking in and asking questions, but we’re not just assuming everything is revolving around that nor are we just avoiding and assuming everything’s fine So I think those would certainly be pieces and then in that let’s say you get going and you’re not really sure what to do next. I think to reach out and get extra support whether that’s talking with leadership in the school, that’s a good option or calling us or another family that’s maybe walked through something similar or other local counseling. 

I think those would certainly be good things. Another piece that comes to mind is in a lot of situations, we just need to give good solid information to kids. You know, if X happens, let’s say we go back to 911, like telling them what happened and giving them the information, the facts is a wise thing. 

Generally speaking, they’re going to run in their imagination probably to places that would be even worse, like in that example. And just them having an idea of what happened so they can sort through it can be pretty helpful. That makes a lot of sense because they’ve got a script being written in their head about how they’re processing and that contributes, I would guess, to the trauma they experience. 

Right. It’s that script that’s running. Exactly. And so, if the script is in error, right, well then, we can help rewrite that script. And that process will take time. Is it important for parents to be able to separate the reason why things happened and that they happened? Okay, so let me give you this as a setup. 

Now I’m thinking if a teenager falls prey to some sexual abuse. And then when the parents unpack that, they find that she made unwise decisions. And so, why did you do this? And why did you do that becomes the fodder of conversation as opposed to caring for her. Yeah, you know what I’m saying? 

Yeah, and that’s so hard. I think sometimes as parents in our exasperation fight the wrong battles. Yeah, exactly and we take the position sometimes of accidentally reinforcing some of trauma’s really painful messages such as this is your fault. And instead, I think we have to start by connecting and realizing the depth of hurt that happens in this kind of a situation and just being a place where there’s love, nurture, and care. 

I think we have to start there and sometimes that can be tricky in a situation like you’re describing. Yeah. Connect first. If there’s a place for teaching and instruction, that will come, but our natural bent, I think, a lot of times is to start with instruction, and then if that connection piece isn’t in place, the instruction isn’t able to be received, or it comes in the wrong spirit, and then it becomes something that can backfire. 

Right. I think part of it, and I almost wonder if there’s a mindset here that we as parents need to have, I want to protect my children from trauma at all costs. I want no trauma in the life of my children. Does that make sense? Now, is that a pretty tough thing to manage? I’d say impossible. I mean, it’s a good desire, right? 

Yeah, so I think we need to be cautious because if I have that as my thought process and I find out my child has been traumatized, the wheels start to come off of my parenting worldview. And I think then I start to ask the wrong questions and go about things perhaps in the wrong way. 

So, I want you to rewrite my parenting worldview on trauma. Does that make sense? And I guess what I would say there is just that to recognize that it is our job to point them towards Christ, to come alongside, to be a place of safety, a place of love, a place of good, sound, wise teaching. And in that, living in a fallen world where there’s brokenness in ourselves, in other people, and even in just the world at large, bad things will happen. 

And we want to have in our own selves, but also our kids, the integrity and the ability to have some skills to walk through those bad things, whatever they are, hopefully they won’t be the things that we’re talking about, but the reality that we don’t have as much control as we would love as parents. And to be reminded that as parents, we’re going to be human too, right? 

And we could be consumed with that worry and doubt and fear and yet we’re not asked to live in a spirit of fear. If something happens and we have to deal with something, sometimes we need a little bit of our time to just get together and process and to talk through and work through our emotions before we then address head on with our kids where we’re at. 

Yeah. I’d like to unpack and maybe synthesize a little bit of what I’m hearing here about this. Parental worldview, we have a worldview that we live in a broken world and that perhaps our objective is not to get through this world unscathed, but our objective is to deal with the scathing. Does that make sense? Absolutely. I think there’s a world of difference there. I’m not sure if my child who stumbles across a pornography website is going to want to talk to me about it. With the other one, maybe more apt to. And so, when we talk about dealing with trauma, we’re basically processing that event. 

Is that right? Is that a great way to think about it? Yeah. And I would say there are a couple of different pieces. So, one piece there may be needing to process the past event and bring some helpful meaning to it. So that’s one piece. And then the other piece I think is living in the present moment with the right perception of the present moment. And sometimes those are independent of each other. So, it’s not necessarily just going into the past and reshaping that. It’s also like, how do I bring sense into this now that even though I feel really scared, this present moment is okay. 

And reprocessing that perception, that’s ultimately what you want to get to. I’m going to give an example and see if I can hit both of these things. Let’s take that pornography exposure. Okay. Right. They’re playing with the iPad and off they go. It can happen so quickly. They’re exposed in a really hurtful way, in a formative way. So, one thing if that were to come out, you can process that event, help them feel at peace about it as best you can. Bring perspective about what they saw, but then there’s, okay, now that you’ve lost that innocence, now we have to walk with you with that information. We can’t simply say, all right, we’re back to where we were before. 

Even if the trauma has been processed. We’re a different person post trauma, and now how do we best walk with that information? I don’t know if I’m hitting on that. Yeah. Clear it up. Does that make sense? Yeah, it does, I think. And so, in the moment, you’re helping them see themselves rightly in the context that X has happened in the past. 

How does that impact who they are today and the information they have now? How do they sort through that in a way that’s helpful and allows them to engage the present moment underneath God’s law and authority? Yeah, I like that. And things in life will have the opportunity to refine us, but there’ll also be things that might happen, especially when Satan wants to get involved, where he’ll want us to just be defined by it. 

Call me this. I’m defined by this forever. Yeah. I’m marked. I think one of the unique things maybe with trauma is that it might be present, but then it might just go below the surface, and then it might appear that it’s gone, and our kids, oh, we’re fine, we’re good, and then it might come back again, and it might come, go, and so it’s just moving this to the surface, then below the surface and, and so sometimes with trauma, it’s not something that a band aid takes care of. 

It could be something that really goes on for a while that takes some extra effort. So, Craig, what I’m hearing here though, too, is it possible for us to see that this has been processed and it’s behind them when perhaps it’s not? it could surface later. Yeah. Is that a true statement? Yeah. 

Those behaviors are more withdrawn or it’s internally, it’s really easy to think everything’s okay when the battle continues to roar inside, and you don’t know it. And you can just say, oh, they’re a little quieter. They seem a little bit more withdrawn, but yeah, they seem to be doing really good. 

I think, you know, the tornado happened, but everybody’s moved on and we’re in a good space. We’re in a new place. Yeah. And it maybe looks like that, but nobody’s really talked to them and really getting a picture of where they’re currently at and to help them know what feeling right or healthy thinking again looks like because of remembering that loss of safety and security. 

All of a sudden, it’s like, well, I don’t necessarily know what to think anymore. And I’m told that things are fine. So, okay, I guess I need to be fine, but I don’t know what that picture is. And for us speaking into that, I think another thing that comes to mind there, too, if somebody has been sexually abused and that kind of a trauma, as they work through developmental stages, even if they’ve had some really good healing to the initial trauma, let’s say they’re moving through puberty now, that’s going to bring something else that may be a new piece to that or another level that would be difficult, even though there’s been some good processing and work, it may need to be revisited again. 

You know, something like that would happen. Yeah. Tying onto that, something I see a lot in the school systems is when kids will come, and they’ll talk about that mom and dad have divorced or they’ve separated or that they’re getting a divorce, and our culture has normalized that so it’s almost a non-event anymore. 

Unfortunate, but it’s really a non-event, for most kids. And that is something that kids will have to process the elements for. As each developmental stage comes, they will have to reprocess or go through a reprocessing of that again. Okay. So now that’s interesting. That brings up, I think, a unique aspect of trauma in children, and that is they’d be traumatized by the collateral damage of somebody else’s trauma. Does that make sense?  

So, I mean, divorce is a perfect example of that, where it’s outside of them. It’s affecting them. And sometimes we might think it shouldn’t affect them as much as it does. And I’m sure the examples are vast in the sense that we as parents might be enduring something and not realizing the fallout. Could it be because we are consumed by it ourselves? Does that make sense? Sure. I know the phrase that probably hurts kids the most in those situations is, we’ve talked about this, you should be over this by now. And as an adult, I can rationalize that pretty well, but a seven-year-old or 12-year-old or whatever, it’s not about you should be over this, but I’m noticing that you’re still having a hard time. Talk to me about what’s going on and how I can help. It’s not in our place as adults to say that shouldn’t be traumatic. 

Okay, now there’s a reality I would like you brothers to speak to. This is maybe more on the larger T trauma. Yeah. Wonderfully, the gospel says, Christ makes all things new. Tremendous amount of resolve in that, right? And it would seem that sometimes he does for some, and sometimes he doesn’t for others. 

Okay. Well, that’s my outside looking in. Take two people who have endured a great deal of trauma and becoming a Christian, becoming a new creature seems to process all of that as deep and dark as it was. And yet another one repents and languishes and then wonders. It’s a really hard spot to speak into, but I think there’s no question that if you just look around and interact with enough people you’ll see that coming to Christ in faith, while it brings spiritual life, it doesn’t heal all the emotional or physical wounds that happened prior to that. 

That verse of all things new, I don’t have to be the author of what that looks like. My Heavenly Father authors that. How can I take this and bring glory to God? I really like that. God authors what the newness looks like, but we like to take that authorship ourselves. So that’s very good. And that God is patient and his love is patient. 

This restoration coming through a trauma sometimes takes patience and sometimes takes time. And this is one of the great messages of the Bible, the Christian worldview is that there’s always hope. There’s hope for restoration. And one of the things I’m constantly amazed about is how resilient God has made children. 

So, I think that’s another piece of the puzzle that they’re not nearly as fragile as we can think they are sometimes. Now again, we want to keep them from big things, but they are amazingly resilient, praise God. Has that been your experience too, Craig? You’ve worked with a lot of kids. You know, there’s a tendency they could be traumatized easier, but they can also recover easier or quicker or faster, right? 

So, they’re sponges, and they love to learn. They love to know what to do and we get to be that agent for helping them know how to get through this. And what a great message as God gives us the Holy Spirit to get through. How do we manage? How do we deal? How do we survive? And we also then get to relay that message to our kids. You’re not out here on your own. We’re in this together. And to get to walk through those hard times with our children. Craig and Brian, thank you. I wish it wasn’t anybody’s reality. But for the reasons you’ve mentioned in our broken world, it is. 

And so, the help that’s been provided to help process, for us to think through it, to guide us as parents that we think rightly about our children, their experiences and how to step into this, how we can best protect them, how we can have their safety close at our heart and be thoughtful about their safety on a daily basis, on a number of levels, not only physically, but emotionally and all of those, I think, has been really helpful. So, thank you very much. Thank you, Matt. Yeah, it’s been a pleasure. To our listeners, we’re thankful for you to be here. And no doubt, this has resonated on a number of levels with you. 

And we trust and pray that it’s sent you in the right direction. Ultimately, that direction is towards Christ and the gospel and his healing and his purpose. And we’re thankful most of all for him though, aren’t we? So, thanks for being here.